I don't even know how the two can be compared, they're different in pretty much every way.

This!

I personally hate NYC and would never in this lifetime live there. I guess I'm just accustomed to LA/California. If you want to start fresh I say you go for it! Maybe look into SF And whoever said girls in New York are ugly, you're on fucking crack!

I don't even know how the two can be compared, they're different in pretty much every way.

Clearly they are vastly different across all aspects. A comparison does not always have to involve two similar things.
If they were more similar to each other, I'd not be considering moving. Anyhow, I appreciate all the input, serious and light hearted.

Clearly they are vastly different across all aspects. A comparison does not always have to involve two similar things.
If they were more similar to each other, I'd not be considering moving. Anyhow, I appreciate all the input, serious and light hearted.

But you said "better", it's just that they're so different I don't even know how you make that determination. It's like asking if it's better to own a Bentley or a Ferrari.

Yea, I guess it's perhaps not a circumstance where you can label one as better than the other. Just trying to compare and contrast....or weigh the pros and cons of one vs the other given my particular situation.

I think it goes both ways. I personally love manhattan in a wish-I-could-live-there-sometime way. I was love/hate with LA for a long time...maybe 4-5 years but now that I've been in LA proper for 10 years straight, I've come to know how to really navigate everything about this entire city. Traffic doesn't exist in my life, fake people never infiltrate my inner circle, but dumb people are constantly run into.
I just feel like I got acclimated to the wrong city the past ten years haha.

This is strictly a grass is greener on the other side scenario. I had a talk with a lot of my other friends who work in different areas of finance from prime brokerage, buy side equities, sales/trading etc. and they all were telling me I have it really good and am blind to it. Also, there's a girl in NY who I would be dating if we lived close to each other. That also clouds judgment somewhat.

Also, when you say "Manhattan" that's a fairly specific area. When you say "LA" you're talking about a much broader area. Is there a specific area within LA you're interested in? Are you considering parts of Orange County, which aren't part of LA but are considered to be part of the whole sprawl that makes up socal?

oh I mentioned up above that I live in West Hollywood. Well, the border of WeHo and Beverly Hills. The street next to me is 90210 and my building sits on 90048.

So as far as desireable parts of LA goes, it's a decent comparison to Manhattan. It's not like I'm sittin on my butt in lancaster or some inferno in the valley (no offense). I also grew up in Laguna down in OC most of my life so yea...naturally I dislike BroC.

I lived in NYC for 20 years so maybe my opinion is skewed to the negative...
If you don't live in the lower half of Manhattan, that convenience argument goes out the window. I can't tell you how many times I waited for the 1 train in Times Sq. at 2am after a movie for over an hour. And I remember being angry and asking myself "isn't this NYC? the city that never sleeps? Where is the freaking train??"
Cabs get expensive, unless your traveling 15 blocks.

I honestly think Manhattan is a great place to visit, but not live. Then again, I personally like open space, palm trees, beaches. It's a wonder I never moved out to the west coast.

I lived in NYC for 20 years so maybe my opinion is skewed to the negative...
If you don't live in the lower half of Manhattan, that convenience argument goes out the window. I can't tell you how many times I waited for the 1 train in Times Sq. at 2am after a movie for over an hour. And I remember being angry and asking myself "isn't this NYC? the city that never sleeps? Where is the freaking train??"
Cabs get expensive, unless your traveling 15 blocks.

I honestly think Manhattan is a great place to visit, but not live. Then again, I personally like open space, palm trees, beaches. It's a wonder I never moved out to the west coast.

Of course Manhattan is a specific area. I could even get more specific because I know the neighborhoods I'd likely move to, but isn't that the point? It's not like I'm asking a vague question such as I live on the west coast...should I consider moving to the state of NY?

I agree that Manhattan is a lot easier to visit than live in...as opposed to West LA which is not cool to visit, but is good to live in. I sleep like a hibernating bear and never have problems falling asleep and not waking up til morning. At least noise wouldn't be an issue.

Personally though, I'm not that interested in either one, but I'd take LA over NY in a heartbeat. The only real bad thing about LA is how spread out it is, which means there's a lot of traffic and it takes a while to get anywhere. Other than that, what exactly does NY offer that LA can't offer equally well or better?

Quote:

would like to visit LA one day...

but it just seems like one very densely populated, polluted, sprawling suburban metropolis. doesn't really look like a city at all in fact, compared to NYC. heck, there isn't even a skyline if you can call that a skyline.

Uhhhhh....those are mutually exclusive....there aren't many tall buildings, and there's suburban sprawl because the density is much LOWER than NYC.

Downtown LA is really irrelevent though. It's all about Hollywood and the beach communities.

I work in finance at one of the big ibanks doing corp pension asset mgmt and didn't have a good enough leg into something similar or different through the market crash (lucky enough to have held my job while everyone got massacred thru mid 08-early 09). Anyhow, now I can either move to our NY offices and take my rolodex with me and make exactly the same amount of money while inreasing my living costs by a ton, or I can leave this one and try to get a new one, but end up leaving a significant amount of deferred comp on the table that most other firms would never replace for me. Plus I'd have to sell my new car that I just bought.

sounds like you need to move out to move up. Do you have an MBA or CFA? Given the competition for real jobs on the street (banking/research/sales&trading), it would be difficult to land without experience or recommendation from important people to get your foot in the door. Even if you land a job in asset management, your salary should be adjusted given the fact that youre living in NYC, which has a higher cost. Sounds like your firm isn't too supportive of the move. Also, you will probably pick up some new clients/contacts since you aren't 3 hrs behind the real world.. Good luck

sounds like you need to move out to move up. Do you have an MBA or CFA? Given the competition for real jobs on the street (banking/research/sales&trading), it would be difficult to land without experience or recommendation from important people to get your foot in the door. Even if you land a job in asset management, your salary should be adjusted given the fact that youre living in NYC, which has a higher cost. Sounds like your firm isn't too supportive of the move. Also, you will probably pick up some new clients/contacts since you aren't 3 hrs behind the real world.. Good luck

CFA, not anything I have any desire in getting because I have no desire to be a PM. MBA is definitely still a goal, but that's a whole different struggle due to the fact that I'd have to go to a fully employed program. Anyhow, regarding the company support, I won't go into the details of that. As with any job in this field, if you go, your contacts go. So the best of the worst case for them is for me to stay with the firm in a different capacity.

oh I mentioned up above that I live in West Hollywood. Well, the border of WeHo and Beverly Hills. The street next to me is 90210 and my building sits on 90048.

So as far as desireable parts of LA goes, it's a decent comparison to Manhattan. It's not like I'm sittin on my butt in lancaster or some inferno in the valley (no offense). I also grew up in Laguna down in OC most of my life so yea...naturally I dislike BroC.

I used to live in 90036, we were practically neighbors.

As far as the stereotype of rude people in NY... my experience has been that some of the rudest jerks I've ever come across have been in LA and some of the nicest people have been in NYC. so many people in LA think they're fucking movie stars because they saw a camera crew once.

yay!! More ignorance! Not biased at all carve, are you? NY most definitely doesn't have a collection of the greatest museums in the world. It doesn't have some of the best nightlife in the world. It doesn't have great restaurants. Culturally, NYC is a Mecca.

But carve is more interested in talking about the weather and the beach...

I got a good comparison! Let's compare the Bahamas to Anchorage.. But let's only talk about the weather and the beach!! Sound good?

Comparing rudeness is a joke. LA is full of fake people, as is NYC. I don't know about the hipster population in LA, but if they have less than NYC then I may consider moving before I get arrested for murder.

__________________

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dude, over all it seems like the opportunity cost for making the "wrong" decision is relatively low (considering age, employability, etc), so that might mean just going for it and trying it out.

i know for me personally, nyc is a nice place to visit, but the pace is too frenetic, and the focus too much on fin services, research, sales, trading etc. i ended up back in my comfort zone: silicon valley/hi-tech/startups/berkeley+stanford geeks/mountain biking/etc. i know most people would prefer nyc to the south bay, but everyone has to find what works best for them...